Blood Royal

by Vanora Bennett

  He’d grown very formal and courteous with Harry, too, Catherine noticed (even if his eyes still had that cold boiled-gooseberry look as they slipped past Catherine herself). He called the little boy ‘Sire’ and ‘Majesty’, and bowed very deeply whenever he could. Was this one of the sacred mysteries of the crowning ceremony Harry had undergone at Westminster? she wondered. Or just a sign of Warwick’s new, soldierly mood?

  The Earl dismounted from his horse and knelt on the ground, bare head bowed, to greet his king. His men stumbled obediently to their knees behind him. Now he was pointing out the sights, riding around the walls, so the people of Rouen could see their king and so Harry could see the castle, the Seine River packed with boats, the town and the towers. Thank God, Catherine thought, that Harry’s natural politeness had been reinforced by the terror that Warwick inspired in him; thank God he was behaving so formally back, bowing solemnly and listening. (His mother’s guess was that the child was just baffled by this new behaviour from his old tormentor.) Catherine didn’t want any conflict between her son and Warwick. They’d all do their best to keep Warwick happy until they could leave Rouen.

  She hoped Warwick would stay at Rouen. He cast such a chill. Even Owain, usually so resourceful at finding his way round problems, had never done anything but bow and cave in to this man.

  There were soldiers all around the grey tower at the castle with its witch’s-hat turret. They were whistling disrespectfully and calling up English words Catherine didn’t understand and didn’t want to.

  ‘We have our most important prisoner up there … tried to jump out more than once … strength of the devil … need a good strong guard,’ the Earl of Warwick told Harry, and his horse skittered back on its hind legs, as if the very idea of the prisoner was jolting it into celebratory action. The midsummer sun flashed and glinted on Warwick’s breastplate.

  Obediently, Harry squinted up. They’d dressed him up in armour for this introductory parade of the castle and town. It was so heavy; and he looked so hot and uncomfortable, slumped on his pony. The sight of his little head turning on his neck wrung Catherine’s heart. She feared it would be all parades and sword practice again, now they were back with Warwick. The calm of Calais, where Harry had been happy, was already only a memory. That was almost as bad as the thought of the prisoner inside, in chains on the straw, head drooping, listening to the catcalls.

  Catherine already knew who the prisoner was. The Cardinal had told her last night at supper at the roadside inn. The big prize of Compiègne had been Jehanne of Arc.

  Catherine could see the tower from her window. She couldn’t stop looking, even after darkness fell, when the only light apart from the stars was the bonfire in the courtyard; when the guards were only shadows on the wall.

  It was right that the girl in there should have been captured; that Charles’ advance should have been stopped. Catherine knew she should have been pleased; pleased for Harry, pleased for England. She should have turned her eyes away from the tower and left the girl to her fate. But she couldn’t. Perhaps it was the mutter of French she’d at last started hearing, on the edge of her English-language surroundings, now they were away from Calais. She was aware of it everywhere here, the language she didn’t have to make the least effort to catch. It was like suddenly being able to understand the birds and the beasts; as if her hearing had sharpened tenfold. So she could hear the whispers between servant boys clearing fires and bringing in logs and mucking out stables, and the peasants and townspeople muttering at the roadside as she passed; people wearing shirts she could see faintly embroidered with the little upright crosses of Saint Michael. White on white. French crosses. Charles’ crosses. Each cross a quiet act of rebellion against English rule, sewn by one of the hundreds of women at their firesides, dreaming of escape. She’d found her ears pricking up eagerly for days at these quiet rustlings of French; her heart warming at the sight of that mute white reproach to the invaders. Then she’d realised – remembered – that the ‘they’ she meant must be ‘we’; that she was part of the invading force.

  The girl in the tower was the one who’d awakened all those people’s hopes. A peasant in boy’s clothes; a girl who talked of having had visions of Saint Michael – who’d destroyed dragons – and of Saint Catherine, the holy virgin who couldn’t be dissuaded from her faith even by fifty philosophers, who’d only been silenced by being broken on a wheel of knives. The girl in the tower had wept at the beauty of what the saints told her. She had a tongue so golden that she’d raised France for Charles, put a crown on his head at Reims, nearly breached the walls of Paris, and, according to Owain, impressed Christine de Pizan out of a decade of silence. Miracle after miracle after miracle.

  Jehanne must be a lunatic. Or a fraud. Or a fool. She must have been a fool to trust her fate to Charles, who’d done nothing to ransom her; who’d passively let her be turned over to the English. But she was gallant, all right. You couldn’t fault her there. She’d been captured because she’d taken the place of honour at the back of the field after ordering a retreat. The Cardinal had said so. She’d been easy pickings for the Burgundians cleaning up the rear guard.

  Catherine tried to imagine what that must have been like: tried to picture dressing as a short-haired boy, or holding up a sword, or yelling a command to a sea of men, or charging. The surge of muscle and intent; the heat and dash of it. But her imagination failed her. It was too far from herself: from all the anxious retreats and defeats and defences and worrying that had made up Catherine’s life. Try as she might, she couldn’t see how an illiterate peasant girl, even one armed with a sword that she had miraculously found behind the altar at the shrine of Saint Catherine at Fierbois, a sword the rust had dropped from as she lifted it, could have found the courage to do all the things she was said to have done. She’d persuaded her family to take her to the garrison commander at Vaucouleurs. She’d persuaded that sceptical count out of his sarcasm and into letting her visit Charles’ court, far away in the south, through hostile Burgundian territory, putting on her boy disguise to escape detection on the road. Once there, she’d somehow persuaded the brisk, snappy, hard little Yolande of Aragon, Charles’ mother-in-law, to let her travel with Charles’ army to Orleans. And how could she possibly have convinced enough supporters that she had the ear of the saints that they would give her armour, white armour, and a horse, and a banner and an entourage; that they would let her lead an army?

  Catherine, aware of how her own courage had so often failed her at the prospect of looking Warwick or Duke Humphrey, or even her mother, in the eye and insisting on what she wanted, couldn’t begin to fathom it. Comparing her own frozen immobility with these stories of wild, unhesitating, uncompromising courage, she thought: if Jehanne’s a fox, then I’m a rabbit. For a moment she was ashamed that she had never done what the peasant girl had done; never found the strength to have gone out and spoken her mind and led adoring armies inspired by her golden words and the bright steel of her sword. If the stories weren’t exaggerated to the point of complete falsehood – if the girl really had done all that – well, she thought, it did seem a miracle.

  All she could really imagine, as she shook her own long hair out till it hung down her back, was taking the knife and chopping it away to boy-length: the sound of the blade sawing; the soft swoosh of the locks dropping to the floor; the freedom of wind on the neck. Experimentally she held her hair away from her own neck; put a finger to it in place of a knife; felt the night air on her nape. Would you be changed by that act of severance? Could you be changed enough?

  She was so absorbed that she didn’t even hear Owain come in. She’d only glimpsed him on the road here; only had the memory of his last quiet words back in Calais, with his arms encircling her: ‘I’ll find you there; don’t worry.’ But she hadn’t known whether he’d manage to make his way to her room tonight, now they were all so packed in; in a castle so full of noisy soldiery.

  She only became aware of him when she felt other hands tak
e her hair; another finger held to it like a knife. With his arms on her again, she knew she was safe; the fears that always tied her gut in knots eased away at once. But now she couldn’t help wondering what it must be like to live without fear altogether; to have the certainty that, even quite alone, you would find a way to do what you knew was needed.

  Owain was smiling rather sadly as he leaned forward to kiss her ear, holding her close. ‘Cutting off your hair …’ he said, knowing at once; nodding at the tower. ‘I know … I’ve been thinking about her too. You can’t help wondering what set her off, can you?’

  ‘How she had the courage …’ Catherine sighed. ‘I can’t help admiring her for that.’

  Then, feeling so terrified saying it, even in a whisper, even in the safety of here, with him, that her heart started to race before she spoke, she gulped out: ‘I hope she gets away.’

  She waited, frozen, for Owain to respond. Jehanne was, after all, the enemy. But he didn’t condemn her for the thought; he only shook his head regretfully, as if he half-agreed but thought it unlikely. ‘Look at that guard,’ he muttered. ‘She jumped seventy feet at Vaucouleurs – twice. They’re not taking any chances here.’

  Even in her relief, Catherine’s heart was still thudding as if she’d been running. But Owain only went on: ‘They’ll have to put her on trial – some sort of full public trial. They can’t just kill her quietly. She’s too popular. They’ll need a process of law. They’ll need to call killing her an execution. But they do need her to die.’

  She chafed at the quiet remorselessness of Owain’s voice. He liked the drama of Jehanne, the flashing sword. She could see that. But he clearly didn’t feel the same empathy Catherine did with that girl, trapped in the tower, with only cruelty and death ahead.

  ‘They – or, rather, we,’ Owain corrected himself, ‘– the English army, that is – have to prove she’s flesh and blood, not a miracle-worker – not protected by God. Because she nearly won France for your brother. She crowned your brother King of France. And too many people have started to believe that’s who he is – you’ve seen the white crosses, haven’t you? Warwick has to get her executed to prove to the doubters that your son is King of France.’

  Catherine sighed. She could see the force of the argument, in principle, though now Jehanne was captured and Charles’ army contained again, what difference need it make to Harry whether the girl were alive or dead? Still, obviously that wasn’t what Warwick would say. So there was no hope. Just a stay of execution for the peasant girl, as, she supposed, was the case for everyone really; a lingering of days before an unthinkable end.

  Owain smiled at her. He was putting Jehanne from his mind; he wanted to celebrate their reunion. But her mind shied away from that, and from thinking of Charles. She went quiet and still in his arms. She couldn’t make love. She couldn’t get that girl in the other tower out of her mind, and couldn’t stop the pity and the anger filling her at the thought of Jehanne. At least she, Catherine, was only being shut away from a full life by those men; but Jehanne would be killed.

  For a moment, Owain sighed too. She could feel his cheekbone against hers; he was looking out at the tower and there was pain in his eyes. For a moment she loved him utterly for sharing her feelings so completely; but then she realised he wasn’t sighing for Jehanne at all. After a while, he said pensively: ‘Poor Christine. How sad she’ll be … I wonder if she knows.’

  The Cardinal’s rooms were, as usual, the best in Rouen Castle, and he’d made them better still with the luxurious hangings and furs and furnishings he always travelled with. Owain didn’t know quite how his master managed to create this appearance of grandeur wherever he went, and with no apparent effort, but he admired the effect.

  But today Beaufort’s sunken cheeks were more sunken than usual; his prominent eyes bulging. He was stroking his chin. The Cardinal made a point of never looking anything but good-tempered and worldly wise; but, Owain thought, this was as close as he’d seen the churchman come to looking worried.

  ‘My boy, I’ve just had a very odd conversation with Warwick,’ he began. He raised an eyebrow.

  Owain waited.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to have been able to persuade any French judges to frame a case against his prisoner,’ the Cardinal went on. ‘Whoever he tries, they all just say the same thing – that she hasn’t committed a crime – she’s just a prisoner of war.’

  Correct though it was that Jehanne had committed no crime but was a prisoner of war – who therefore shouldn’t, according to the laws of honour, be executed – Owain turned up his hands to indicate bewilderment. He didn’t like to pre-empt the Cardinal. He was the servant; it was his job to defer to his master. They were both happy with their familiar roles. The Cardinal nodded, aware of this restraint, and went on: ‘So, as you can imagine, Warwick isn’t happy at all.’

  ‘He needs to put Jehanne on trial,’ Owain agreed.

  ‘And here’s the rub,’ the Cardinal went on, putting a veiny white hand to his forehead so that Owain could see for sure he hadn’t made a mistake earlier – the Cardinal really was worried – ‘Warwick’s saying now that if he can’t have a secular trial, he’s going to have to go to the church courts instead. It seems he’s got some tame bishop in hand, promising him a guilty verdict.’ He raised his eyes to Owain’s face. They were bloodshot. ‘If there’s a religious trial, it puts me in a very awkward position indeed, my boy. As you can imagine.’

  Owain raised his eyebrows. ‘Why?’ he asked. That was his job: drawing the Cardinal’s thoughts.

  ‘Because there are no real religious grounds for a trial either,’ the Cardinal said. ‘So whatever laughably trumped-up case Warwick and his little bishop come up with, using whatever nasty little religious court with its nasty little bought opinion, right under my very nose – when half of Christendom is for Jehanne and Charles, and even the Pope is half-convinced Jehanne is a saint … well, I shouldn’t be involved. I should have nothing to do with any of that. You can see that, can’t you? A Cardinal of Rome, apparently condoning whatever it is that Warwick’s going to do. The Pope’s not going to like it … not one little bit …’

  The Cardinal wrung his hands under his chin. Owain could indeed see his dilemma. The Cardinal was making this trip in the hope of cementing his friendship with the little King of England and making his own future secure. The Cardinal needed to take steps to protect himself because his position was so precarious. He was already out of favour with Duke Humphrey in England. If he also fell out of favour with his foreign master, the Pope, he’d be in a very weak position indeed.

  ‘So … should you leave?’ Owain asked, cutting to what he felt was the central question: what action the Cardinal should take. ‘Now … before it goes any further … before you are implicated?’ But Owain could see the problem with a principled walk-out even before he said those words. If the Cardinal left, he’d cut his ties with Harry and Catherine. And those ties were exactly what he was trying to strengthen.

  The Cardinal shook the head still cradled in his hands. ‘Can’t do that,’ he said. No explanations. He never offered explanations if he could avoid it; he tried never to pin himself down too much.

  With private surprise, Owain realised that Catherine and the Cardinal, for very different reasons, each seemed to be inclining towards support for Jehanne, meaning conflict with Warwick. Owain didn’t share their complicated feelings. As far as he was concerned, there were no doubts and no shades of grey. Jehanne’s actions in the past, and her existence in the present, were a threat to Harry and to the English rule in France that King Henry had instituted. Owain’s loyalties lay with Henry’s son, and always would, so any threat to the child had to be neutralised. It wasn’t personal; it wasn’t that Owain didn’t thrill a little to the idea of that girl taking up a sword; the gallantry of it. But it didn’t make any difference. Jehanne had to die, just as a wasp, a rat or a spider that came too close to the little King’s person would be exterminated. Henry would hav
e wanted no less.

  Owain thought it might be advisable to keep Catherine and the Cardinal apart while this question was discussed. He didn’t like the image that flashed into his head: the pair of them stalking out of the great hall together, leaving behind a furious, white-faced Warwick. He didn’t want trouble. He’d advise Catherine to eat in her rooms; he’d advise the Cardinal to stick to theology. They couldn’t combine forces that way.

  He told the Cardinal: ‘Talk to Warwick again. He won’t want to look a fool any more than you. If there are no grounds for a religious trial, explain why. Dissuade him.’

  ‘You look so tired,’ Owain said, kissing Catherine’s eyes shut. ‘Rest. I’ll have food sent up to you for today. I don’t want you to get ill.’

  ‘No,’ Catherine replied determinedly. She rose naked from the bed. ‘I’m not missing dinner. Not today. Dame Butler says that’s when Warwick’s going to make his announcement about Jehanne. Apparently he’s going to put her before a religious court – for heresy.’

  Owain hadn’t asked the Cardinal exactly what the charge would be. ‘Heresy?’ he queried faintly. It sounded a dubious sort of charge. The visions; the voices? Were they heretical?

  ‘Because she wore men’s clothes,’ Catherine said. ‘He’s saying that was heresy.’

  With something like dread, Owain saw her chin jut into an unfamiliar stubbornness. She went on, with undisguised scorn for the clumsiness of the accusation – and, he felt, for Warwick’s choice of it, as well as Warwick himself: ‘But of course you’d need to dress up as a man on the battlefield.’

  Thank God we will be leaving Rouen soon, Owain thought. But even he hadn’t understood everything. It was only when he was sitting in the great hall, at his place halfway down the table among the knights, watching Warwick’s thin lips move as he made his announcement, that Owain realised what was happening. Warwick declared that the King, the Queen Mother, the royal party and the English army would all stay at Rouen for the duration of the heresy trial he was convening for Jehanne. It was vital, he said, that the greatest lords of France were seen to witness the heretic being destroyed.